By Evan Ackerman

Full disclosure: in between the time I decided to write about the Bialetti Hot Cocoa Maker, and the time that I actually started writing about the Bialetti Hot Cocoa Maker, I went and made myself a cup of hot cocoa. A marginally unsatisfactory cup, I have to say. It came out of a packet and included some entirely useless freeze-dried marshmallows. Certainly nothing like the delicious, creamy cup of cocoa that Bialetti promises… I mean, just look at it. It’s specifically designed to make as close to a perfect cup of hot chocolate as you’ll get this side of the Atlantic.

All you have to do is fill it up with milk and shaved chocolate or cocoa, and then the Bialetti will heat and mix it up and even add a bit of frothiness for good measure. It’s not limited to hot chocolate, either… It’ll make varieties of coffee, tea, iced drinks, and even pudding. Yes, pudding.

$100 from Williams-Sonoma.

[ Bialetti Hot Cocoa Maker ] VIA [ Unpluggd ]

By Evan Ackerman

We saw renderings of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShip2 and its mothership, White Knight 2, back in January. This week, the finish craft were both officially unveiled at the future location of the as yet unfinished Spaceport America in New Mexico, and Virgin Galactic says they’ll be heading to space several times a day as early as 2011.

Each spaceflight will last about 2.5 hours round trip. White Knight 2 carries SpaceShip2 up to an altitude of 52,000 feet, at which point SS2 separates and fires its rocket to accelerate at mach 3 to an altitude of about 70 miles. 5 minutes of glorious views and weightlessness ensues, after which the passengers hopefully survive the crushing g-forces (maxing out at 6 gs for 20 seconds) and glide back to a safe landing. The cost of all this? $200,000.

Oh, and here’s a little nugget of awesome for you: the first two spacecraft are reportedly named Enterprise and Voyager.

[ Virgin Galactic ]

By Evan Ackerman

Inside this rather large box comes a rather small USB powered display. The Luma Labs UD7 Gadget Display has a 1.5″ screen, which is small enough that you can’t really display much of anything on it. Essentially, it’s a lot like a single button from the Optimus Mini Three, in that it’s not designed to act as a secondary display, but rather as the primary display for a variety of widgets. You’ve got options like clocks, system monitors, timers, games, and even Twitter and Facebook feeds. It’s kinda cute and potentially useful, and at only $30, totally easy to rationalize.

[ Gadget Display ] VIA [ SlashGear ]

By Chris Scott Barr

I’ve never been able to understand trackball mice. No matter how much I use one, I still find it to be uncomfortable and less accurate than a traditional mouse. Nevertheless, some people swear by them. Well if you happen to be one of those people and in need of a number pad for your keyboard, then you’ll love this gadget.

The Track Ball Mouse Numerical Keypad Hub has got just about everything you’d want in a crazy hybrid gadget. You’ve got your mouse, number pad and even a pair of USB ports. Seriously, how many of you can say that your mouse is also a USB hub? That’s what I thought. For just under $60 you can blow the minds of each and every one of your coworkers.

[ GeekStuff4U ] VIA [ RedFerret ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Before today I wouldn’t have thought there was any way a classic set of wooden building blocks could be improved. But these Tegu sets, which feature magnets hidden inside each block, are simply genius! No longer will castles or fortresses be easily demolished by the forces of gravity, and the fact that the blocks aren’t all cubes and can stick together allows a child to build more complex creations like animals, robots and I guess whatever their imagination conjures up.

At the moment there are 3 Tegu block sets available including the ‘Starter Set‘ which comes with 26 blocks in 3 shapes (cubes and long & short planks) for $50, the ‘Original Set‘ which comes with 52 blocks in 4 shapes (it adds jumbo planks) for $85 and a ‘Limited Edition Mahogany Set‘ version of the latter for $125. I’d say they’d make an awesome Christmas present for a lucky young’n, but I’m pretty tempted to order a set just for myself!

[ Tegu Wooden Building Blocks ] VIA [ Cool Hunting ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Another toy from yesteryear gets the 21st century treatment, but this time I’m not as outraged as I’ve been in the past. Perhaps it’s because I never owned a set of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, and so have no emotional attachment, but I like the idea of using a couple of accelerometer-equipped motion & tilt sensing infrared remotes to control a tiny robotic combatant as he dukes it out in the squared circle. This time around though instead of your opponents’ head popping up signifying a victory, a chest sensor on each bot registers ‘hits’ which show up on an LED display. Get hit 4 times and your bot is down for the count. ~$80 from Hammacher Schlemmer.

[ Motion Mimicking Robotic Pugilists ] VIA [ The UberReview ]

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of LG Chocolate Touch. All opinions are 100% mine.

Update: Well now you can win your very own LG Chocolate Touch! To enter this giveaway, simply leave a comment on this post about your very first phone. Or Tweet out a message containing the URL of this blog post as well as the hashtag #VX8575. Sadly this is US only. Full set of rules: here.

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By David Ponce

Verizon has recently made available the most recent incarnation of the LG Chocolate line of phones in the LG Chocolate Touch VX8575 . Like the previous generations, the Chocolate Touch has an emphasis on music, though it’s an altogether pretty rounded out phone.

Out of the box, the device seems slim and light, though not of any dimensions we haven’t seen before. The screen is a bright 3 inches with WQVGA resolution and support for 262k colors. It comes 1GB of internal music memory, though it’s expandable up to 16GB through MicroSD cards. Rounding out the main specs, you have a 3.2MP digicam, 3.5mm audio jack and a “Patented Dolby Mobile music system”.

The music features definitely stand out.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Andrew Liszewski

If you’re the type of person who looks at the iPod Shuffle and thinks to yourself “it’s nice and all, but can’t they make it smaller?” then it’s pretty clear your standards are just too damn high. But thankfully you don’t seem to be alone, lest this Micro Sport Japanese MP3 Player from ThinkGeek wouldn’t exist. According to them it’s only about the size of 2 sugar cubes, but includes 4GB of storage, external control buttons and a rechargeable battery. And since there’s no display, its battery life is probably half-decent.

Using the ear-piece player alone you’ll enjoy all the glory of mono sound, but you stereo audiophiles can attach an additional earbud for the other side of your head which connects to the player with a short cable. The downside of course is that you’re forced to use the earbuds the player comes with, which is never a good idea, but if size > sound quality in your mind, you’ve just found a way to rid yourself of $79.99.

[ Micro Sport Japanese MP3 Player ] VIA [ The Gadgeteer ]

By Andrew Liszewski

And on the other end of the USB accessories spectrum comes this 4-port hub from Loas which as far as I can tell is as small as a 4-port USB hub is ever going to get. Feature-wise it’s pretty basic, which is what I expect from a hub, with support for the important flavors of Windows and OS X as well as 4 different colors to choose from including black, pink, silver and white.

[ Compact Loas 4-Port USB Hub ] VIA [ Akihabara News ]